OVER 16,000 Australian manufacturing jobs have been lost in the last two years to June last year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics annual manufacturing survey.
The survey showed 16,337 jobs have already been shed and more alarmingly, by the end of 2006-07, Australia had barely a million manufacturing workers, a big fall from 1.35 million in 1973-74.
In the two years to June 2007, the ABS found jobs rose in only six out of 15 manufacturing sectors, and fell in nine.
The main increases were in food processing (up 9215), production of basic chemical products (up 3337) and metals processing (up 2912).
However other sectors experienced significant downturn, with 8330 jobs lost in furniture and miscellaneous manufacturing and 6029 lost in plastics.
Victoria remains Australia’s manufacturing hub, with 293,188 jobs compared to 291,283 in NSW.